Welcome to the 1947project

Gentle reader, welcome to 1947project. The site you’re visiting contains two years’ worth of blogging the crimes and oddities of 1907 and 1927, plus occasional fresh historical Los Angeles inquiries, among them Nathan Marsak’s L.A. Noire gameplay blog. If you’re looking for the original 1947project and crimes of that wild post-war year, click here.

There are two other time travel blogs in the 1947project stable: On Bunker Hill is a house-by-house survey, exploring the great lost downtown neighborhood of Bunker Hill from the 1880s to the 2000s. Join us On Bunker Hill to meet the people, homes and peculiarities that called the hill their own. Can’t get enough of historic L.A. oddities? Then visit our other blog In SRO Land, lost lore of the historic core. Or for that personal touch, join us on an Esotouric bus adventure into the secret heart of Los Angeles.

Larry notes: Hi. Despite what you read everywhere, Elizabeth Short wasn’t found at 39th and Norton Avenue. She was found between 39th and Coliseum, about roughly the midpoint of the block.To which Nathan replies: Larry is correct. Here’s a shot looking north on Norton, with Coliseum in the distance. I would posit that the action is a bit closer to 39th than halfway up the block, but if so, not by much–Norton is a long block here. One source has her at “54 feet north of the fire hydrant at mid-block” so there you go.

While off-topic for LA47, I still have to ask this, as I’m sure one of you out there knows… Short was bagged in Santa Barbara in ’43 (whence came that famous photo, and her post-murder ID) for underage drinking, and what I want to know is, where was she popped?

A polite young bandit said “Sorry, ladies” this morning, before pointing a gun at bookkeepers Helen Eversole and Geraldine Farris, both employed at Duffy & Co. meat wholesalers, 1603 W. Florence Ave. He absconded with $1251 and bid his victims a gracious adieu.

Ah, Duffy & Company Meat. You can almost see the metal can of the neon sign blinking on the side of what is now the Southwestern Church of God. Dig the glass brick. The International Modern use of form and space. The smell of blood. Befitting a Church of God, I’d say.

Navy vet Fletcher E. Talley Jr., 32, hospitalized twice last year at the VA on Sawtelle for psychiatric reasons, was arrested shortly after midnight on suspicion of assault to commit murder after police were called to his home at 1533 1/2 E. 76th Place.

Talley claimed his recent gunshot wounds (through the right leg above the knee and through the right thumb) were the result of accidental horseplay. His wife Virginia, 33, countered that Talley had ripped off her blouse, tried to strangle her with a light cord and had pulled the phone from the wall. Fletcher admitted he had spent part of the evening dissecting the living room divan with a paring knife, but denied Virginia’s claim that he had said “As soon as I finish this, you will be next.” Virginia said she then retrieved the gun, hidden in her daughter’s room, and fired three times at Fletcher.

Superior Judge Dudley S. Valentine, head of L.A. County Superior Court’s psychopathic department, announced today a campaign to force the V.A. to admit metally ill ex-soldiers in greater numbers. Presently, the V.A requires proof that a veteran’s illness is service-connected before providing treatment. At the V.A. hospital on Sawtelle, there are 1750 beds and a waiting list of more than 1200.

Valentine told the L.A. Times that 25% of those sent to state prisons from the L.A. County courts are WW2 veterans, many of them psychopaths ineligible for treatment by the V.A. Those convicts sent to state mental hospitals are forever barred from civil service employment due to rules forbidding ex-mental patients from applying; this does not hold true for patients in V.A. hospitals.

West Covina Chief of Police John T. Brown, 30, of 820 Channing Street, was shot in the side this evening, while seeking to question two men driving a sedan containing what Chief Brown believed to be the bound body of a woman in the back seat. Brown, who became Chief 18 months ago after serving in the infantry, claims that several nights earlier he had found a woman’s nightgown and some gunny sacks hanging in an orange grove in the Vanderhoff tract, 1/4 mile south of Garvey Blvd. For several nights, he had staked the location out, awaiting suspicious activity.

Shortly after midnight tonight, Chief Brown arrived at the location and saw a 1937 or 1938 sedan parked in the area. Drawing his revolver, he crept up and peeked into the back window, seeing the woman, which he could not identify as being alive or dead. One story holds that the driver then pulled out a revolver and fired, striking Chief Brown with what proved to be a flesh wound. Another version of the incident has the driver disarming Chief Brown and shooting him with his own gun.

Authorities noted that murder victims Betty (Black Dahlia) Short, Mrs. Jeanne French and Evelyn Winters were all transported from their death scenes to dump sites by automobile, and speculated that the West Covina pair might be involved in those cases.

Ruth “Sunny” McKenzie, 29, of 1221 El Prado Ave., Torrance, was being held at the Torrance City Jail on suspicion of murder after an incident in her third floor apartment. McKenzie was arguing with her fiance, 30-year-old salesman Jack C. Floyd, about his fondness for another girl at the chemical plant where they both worked.

McKenzie claimed that Floyd fell to his knees while McKenzie sat in a kitchen chair, hugging his assailant and proclaiming that he loved only her. “I was just playing around with the bread knife, which was lying on the drainboard within reach of my hand. I really didn’t mean to stab him. It was an accident.”

Floyd, who lived with his mother in an apartment on the second floor of the building, was allegedly awaiting finalization of his divorce from Mrs. Muriel Floyd of Gardena before marrying Miss McKenzie. Two nights before her son’s death, Mrs. Faye Marie Floyd expressed missgivings about Miss McKenzie, to which she says he replied “Don’t worry, mother. I have no intention of marrying the girl.”

The official motto of Torrance, California is “A Balanced City.”Really. I’m not kidding.

Despite its official reputation as an industrial wasteland of oilrefineries, the overtly balanced Chamber of Commerce wishes you to know that the charming downtown area is in no way sullied by love-addled dames on a knife-stabbing frenzy. Heck, it was an accident.